Line Supervisor Promotion

Kjersten promoted to line superintendent

Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric Line Foreman Kevin Kjersten was promoted, June 15, to line superintendent.

“I felt it was time to make a change and help with moving the co-op forward,” said Kjersten. “I will always miss doing line work. This position will allow me to stay close with the crew and still get out into the field.”

When asked to assess the transition at this point, Kevin said, “The biggest transition is lining up the jobs for the crews and not doing the jobs. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes tasks that keep everything moving that people don’t ever see. The processes that the previous line superintendents have had in place have helped me out.”

As for priorities seeking to accomplish by the end of the calendar year, “I hope to have my own processes down to comfortably schedule the day-to-day schedule without being overwhelmed,” stated Kevin.

Kjersten started with Steele-Waseca as a journeyman line technician in October 2012, and was asked about significant changes in the profession since his start with the co-op.

“First, we have gone from four bucket trucks to six, so when a large storm hits, we have enough buckets for the crew we have,” said Kevin, which helps restore power quicker for members and is safer for the linemen. “Second, we pretty much only had paper map books when I started. Now we have a live map that shows us real time data when a meter goes out. When the line crew is out working, we get an alert that your power is out. In the past, we would fix the outage that called in then go home to bed, not knowing if there were any more outages. Now we can see and fix outages before members even call in or before they even know they are out of power.”

Kevin and his wife, Alyssa, have four daughters ranging from college to elementary school. “We are busy with all of the activities they are in,” said Kevin regarding his interests outside of work.